Telegraph erects web paywall, tosses the great unwashed a few freebies

Follows The Times by metering access to web content

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The Telegraph has become the latest British newspaper to restrict access to its website for those who do not subscribe to its physical and digital editions.

From this day forth, if readers do not pay £9.99 a month for the tablet edition or £30.07 to have the 'paper delivered, they will only be able to access 20 individual articles every month on Telegraph.co.uk.

Unmetered access to the website and smartphone apps can now be purchased for £1.99 a month through the new Web Pack offering. Otherwise users are cut off when they reach the monthly limit.

It's not quite the blanket free content ban that The Times and The Sunday Times put in place in July 2010, but it's likely to be enough to perturb keen Telegraph readers from taking the cost-free option.

Reward for paying customers

In a post on Telegraph.co.uk (which probably counted towards our 20 a month), the newspaper said the move was being made to reward those already paying to access the newspaper's content.

The article said: "The Daily Telegraph continues to have more subscribers than any British national newspaper. We are proud of that fact, and we want to reward our loyal subscribers. So from today, we will be extending our successful international web subscription model to UK readers."

The roll-out of the subscription model is an extension of the trial it had offered to international readers - probably ex-pats - which came into play last November.

Users can snag a free 30 day trial of both the Web Pack and the Digital Pack, but we can imagine there's uproar tonight among the web literate in Orpington, the safest Conservative Party seat in the UK.